'Toxic Legacy' — How Glyphosate Destroys Your Health
June 20, 2022 Puzzle Piece
An article by Dr Joseph Mercola
Sent unedited for your overview
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
· Glyphosate is a very efficient metal chelator. This, in turn,
disrupts your gut microbes because it makes minerals unavailable to the
microbes. Your gut microbes need those minerals, as their enzymes depend
on them for proper functioning.
· There's a strong correlation between the rise in celiac disease over
time and the rise in glyphosate usage on wheat, which is the primary
culprit in celiac disease.
· Glyphosate may worsen the adverse effects of vaccines, in part because
it binds very efficiently to aluminum used as an adjuvant in certain
vaccines. Live virus vaccines that do not contain aluminum adjuvant have
also been found to be contaminated with glyphosate.
· Non-GMO crops such as oats, wheat, barley and legumes like chickpeas
and lentils tend to be very high in glyphosate because these crops are
sprayed with glyphosate right before harvest as a desiccant to speed the
drying process.
· Glyphosate also disrupts the shikimate pathway, both in plants and
microbes, and beneficial microbes are particularly sensitive to
glyphosate.
This article was previously published July 11, 2021, and has been updated with new information.
Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., a senior research scientist at MIT, has published a book, "Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate Is Destroying Our Health and the Environment" — without doubt the best book ever written about glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and many other toxic herbicides.
In
this book, which was a labor of love for a decade, Seneff explains how
and why glyphosate poses an existential threat to humanity, and why it's
so important to avoid it if you care about your health and the health
of your family.
"It's been a decade of learning everything I could about glyphosate," Seneff says. "When
I first heard about it I basically dropped everything else I was doing
because I was so confident that I had found the answer to the autism
epidemic. That was the thing I was looking for. Back in 2012, I heard a
two-hour lecture by Don Huber, and it changed my focus entirely.
I already understood the symptoms of autism, a very complex disease —
lots of gut problems and mineral issues — and it all came together with
his lecture. Overnight I just started poring over all the papers I
could find.
Shortly after that I found Séralini's paper,1 which
had not yet been retracted at that time. It was later republished, the
paper by Séralini, a French toxicologist who had shown that very low
doses of glyphosate over the lifespan of a rat could cause a lot of
damage.
He pointed out that after three months, everything looked good, so
it's a slow kill. This is one thing I emphasize in my book. Glyphosate
is subtle, and that's really a huge problem because people don't [make
the connection]. We have diabetes, obesity, autism, Alzheimer's. It's a
long, long list, all the gut problems.
The microbes are being very much disturbed by the chronic poisoning
with glyphosate, and then the gut becomes a central starting point for
many diseases, including neurological diseases and arthritis. So, you
see that disruption of the gut, and glyphosate can cause exactly the
things that we're seeing."
Glyphosate Contamination in Common Products
Before delving into glyphosate, Seneff spent five years focusing on the
potential toxicities of vaccines. She still believes vaccines can play a
role in the chronic diseases we're seeing, including autism.
However, glyphosate may actually play a more significant role. Seneff
believes it contributes to and worsens damage caused by vaccines, in
part because it binds very efficiently to aluminum used as an adjuvant
in certain vaccines. It likely binds strongly to many other toxic metals
as well.
The theory is that, by being wrapped up with glyphosate molecules, the
metals can more easily penetrate various barriers in your body. This is
because glyphosate causes these barriers, such as your intestinal
barrier and your blood-brain-barrier, to become more porous. And, as
leaky gut or leaky brain set in, the toxic metals are shuttled across,
along with the glyphosate.
Interestingly, Anthony Samsel, a public health research scientist, and
Zen Honeycutt, founder and director of Moms Across America, have
independently found glyphosate contamination in live virus vaccines that
do not contain aluminum adjuvant.
Seneff suspects glyphosate may be a contaminant in many drugs as well,
particularly drugs produced by genetically engineering E. coli or yeast.
They've also found glyphosate in tampons, which may then be absorbed
through your uterine lining.
Seneff also hypothesizes that, since glyphosate is found in many
vegetable-based fats, such as canola and soybean oil, studies comparing
the health effects of fats may be compromised since they never consider
the effects of glyphosate. Interestingly, while not fat-soluble,
glyphosate can still enter fats (and is found in the vegetable oils just
mentioned).
Samsel suspects glyphosate acts as a phosphate analog, because it has a
phosphonate unit, and fats have phosphates (phospholipids). This is
something he's investigating right now, so eventually, we may learn more
about that mechanism.
Glyphosate and the Rise in Celiac Disease
In her book, Seneff details the dramatic increase in glyphosate use
since its introduction in the mid-'70s. Estimates suggest that 1 pound
of glyphosate is applied in the U.S. every year for every man, woman and
child in America, which is an astounding amount. It's not even enough
to buy non-GMO products, as many non-GMO items have been shown to have
some of the highest levels of glyphosate.
There's a strong correlation between the rise in celiac disease over
time and the rise in glyphosate usage on wheat … which makes sense,
because wheat is the source of celiac disease. ~ Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D.
Oats, wheat, barley and legumes like chickpeas and lentils tend to be
very high in glyphosate because these crops are sprayed with glyphosate
right before harvest as a desiccant to speed the drying process.
"I think that's the reason for the epidemic in celiac disease," Seneff says. "Samsel
and I wrote a paper on that. We showed there's a strong correlation
between the rise in celiac disease over time and the rise in glyphosate
usage on wheat, specifically on wheat. It matches much better to wheat
than it does to the other crops, which makes sense, because wheat is the
source of celiac disease."
A case study of an American woman who tried to commit suicide by
drinking glyphosate reveal some of the chemical's effects. She developed
a paralyzed gut, and this may well be what's happening to many, on a
low-grade scale. In essence, people's guts are sort of semi-paralyzed by
the glyphosate in the diet, which causes small intestinal bacterial
overgrowth (SIBO).
Bacteria starts festering in the upper intestine because the peristalsis
is not working properly, so food remnants get stuck. Glyphosate has
also been shown to accumulate in the brain, and animal studies show it
causes neuro excitotoxicity due to excess glutamate in the brain. This,
in turn, "is absolutely connected to autism," Seneff says.
In her book, Seneff also discusses the importance of sulfur for optimal
health, how sulfate deficiency is connected to autism, and how
glyphosate can cause sulfate deficiency.
How Glyphosate Affects Your Gut and Autoimmunity
Part of what makes glyphosate so toxic has to do with the fact that it's
a very efficient metal chelator. It binds metals and minerals really
well. For example, glyphosate is a million times more effective at
chelating aluminum than EDTA, a chelating agent used in heavy metal
chelation treatment.
This, in turn, disrupts your gut microbes because it makes minerals
unavailable to the microbes. Your gut microbes need minerals, as their
enzymes depend on them for proper functioning. Glyphosate also disrupts
the shikimate pathway, both in plants and microbes, and beneficial
microbes are particularly sensitive to glyphosate.
When lactobacillus bacteria are killed off in your gut, your ability to
digest gluten and casein (milk protein) is impaired, as this bacterium
carries several enzymes your body does not have that specialize in
breaking down proline, an amino acid found in gluten and casein. This,
in turn, can eventually lead to autoimmune problems. Seneff explains:
"We have all these allergies to gluten and casein these days, all
these different food sensitivities, and I think it's because the
lactobacillus are being killed off. They can't support the digestion of
those proteins anymore. Then the protein sticks around, the peptide
sequence, and that's what causes an immune reaction.
Then you can get an autoimmune attack through molecular mimicry —
the antibody mis-recognizes a human protein because it looks like the
piece of gluten that they become sensitive to, so they attack a human
protein instead."
Glyphosate Makes Harmful Fat Even More Hazardous
Interestingly, glyphosate may also contribute to the harm caused by the
omega-6 fat linoleic acid (LA). LA is metabolized into arachidonic acid,
which is metabolized into an endogenous cannabinoid that eases pain.
The enzyme that accomplishes this conversion is cytochrome P450 enzyme,
which is disrupted by glyphosate.
Seneff suspects arachidonic acid is getting redirected through enzymes
that convert arachidonic acid into extremely immunogenic products
instead, such as leukotrienes, which act as signaling molecules that
turn on an inflammatory response. A generic term for these signaling
molecules is eicosanoids. She explains:
"Leukotrienes are rightfully blamed for causing all the chronic pain
we're seeing — rheumatoid arthritis, joint and bone pain, and even,
probably, problems with the brain, maybe headaches.
All the different kinds of pain we're experiencing that are
connected to inflammation could be a consequence of cytochrome P450
enzymes blocking the ability to convert arachidonic acid into the
endogenous cannabinoid. Instead, it gets redirected towards these
signaling molecules that cause all this damage."
On top of that, LA, when oxidized, turns into highly toxic free radicals
such as 4HNE, which cause direct oxidative stress damage to cell
membranes, mitochondria, stem cells and DNA. In your mitochondria, a
feedback loop then occurs that causes the shutdown of your energy
metabolism system, resulting in an increase in adipose tissue.
Translation: Excessive LA causes accumulation of belly fat.
Glyphosate Is a Biological Toxin
Its effect on the shikimate pathway is a key mechanism by which
glyphosate causes biological harm in humans. The human body does not
have this pathway — a fact used by Monsanto to argue for glyphosate's
safety. But the microbes in your body do have it. Research has shown
over half the microbes, on average, in your gut have the shikimate
pathway and can therefore be decimated by glyphosate.
These include lactobacillus and bifidobacteria, which use the shikimate
pathway to produce the aromatic amino acids tryptophan, tyrosine and
phenylalanine, crucial coding amino acids that go into all the proteins
of your body. They're absolutely essential for protein assembly, and
your body must rely on your diet and gut microbes to produce adequate
amounts of these amino acids, as your body cannot produce them any other
way.
When your gut microbes are harmed, it can result in a deficiency of
tryptophan, tyrosine and phenylalanine. These amino acids are also
precursors to many other important biologically active molecules. For
example, tryptophan is a precursor to melatonin and serotonin. Tyrosine
is a precursor to thyroid hormone, dopamine and adrenaline.
"These are all really, really important hormones that control brain behavior and regulate behavior and mood," Seneff says. "Serotonin
deficiency is connected to depression, and we have an epidemic in
depression. So, I think there's a direct path there. Also, some of the B
vitamins come out of the shikimate pathway, including thiamine (B1),
riboflavin (B2) and niacin (B3) …
You need thiamine for augmenting your immune system. If you don't
have a lot of thiamine, you're not going to be able to generate a
healthy immune response. That's why it's a part of septic protocols. If
you're wrecking it with glyphosate exposure that's disrupting the
shikimate pathway in your gut microflora, you've got a huge problem."
Glycine Can Help Counteract Adverse Effects of Glyphosate
One simple remedy that can help lower your glyphosate burden is to take a
glycine supplement. As explained by Seneff, the way glyphosate disrupts
the shikimate pathway is by affecting an enzyme called EPSP synthase.
That enzyme bonds to a molecule called phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP). The
"phospho" in that name stands for phosphate.
At the place where EPSB synthase binds to PEP, there's a glycine
molecule. It's a highly-conserved glycine in the enzyme. If that glycine
is swapped out for alanine, a very similar amino acid, the EPSB
synthase enzyme becomes completely insensitive to glyphosate.
"So, it's black and white — either there's a glycine there, in which
case it's incredibly susceptible to glyphosate, or there's alanine, in
which case it's completely insensitive," Seneff says.
Incidentally, this is how agricultural scientists create
glyphosate-resistant GMO crops. They turn the glycine molecule into
alanine, thereby rendering the plant impervious to glyphosate.
When glyphosate enters your system, it can take the place of the glycine
molecule. While similar, (the "gly" in glyphosate stands for glycine)
it's not identical and does not work the same way as glycine. Hence,
this replacement causes all sorts of trouble.
By taking a glycine supplement, you can counteract this chain of events
by making sure there's enough glycine present to fill up those glycine
slots. As noted by Seneff, "If there's lots of glycine, you're going to
be much less likely to pick up glyphosate." She continues:
"I had thought about glyphosate being glycine, and knowing that it's
a glycine analog and that it was affecting places where glycine binds.
Glycine acts as a neural transmitter. Glyphosate messes that up. I
thought, 'I wonder if it can get into the protein in place of glycine?'
My book actually centers on this idea that glyphosate substitutes
for glycine in certain proteins. There's a specific algorithm for where
it would happen, and you can show that those proteins are suppressed by
glyphosate experimentally."
Importantly, glyphosate suppresses glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase
(G6PD), a very important enzyme in red blood cells that maintains NADPH
in its reduced form. If you have reduced levels of NADPH, you're at
increased risk for chronic disease, as your ability to recharge
antioxidants is impaired. This is yet another mechanism by which
glyphosate contributes to any number of disease states.
Glyphosate's Impact on Collagen
Yet another protein that has a high glycine content is collagen, the
primary protein for your connective tissue. It constitutes about
one-quarter of your body's proteins. Because of the presence of glycine,
glyphosate has the ability to impair collagen as well.
"I feel confident that glyphosate is messing up collagen," Seneff says. "Collagen
has a beautiful triple helix structure, which gives it really special
properties of tensile strength and flexibility to hold water. Collagen
has long, long sequences called GXY, GXY, GXY, where every third amino
acid is a glycine. Those glycines hook together to form that triple
helix.
There are people who have mutations in those glycines that cause
joint and bone diseases, and I think glyphosate is causing that.
Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is associated with glycine mutations in collagen,
and there's an increase in the prevalence of that syndrome recently.
Of course, you have many more people getting hip replacement
surgery, and people have back issues, back pain and shoulder surgery,
knee and foot problems. All these different problems with the joints, I
suspect, are being caused by misfolded collagen because of glyphosate
messing it up."
Glyphosate's Impact on Your Vascular System
Another mechanism of action involves the suppression of nitric oxide
(NO), primarily through the suppression of endothelial nitric oxide
(eNOS), which is one of three ways your body makes NO. eNOS is a close
relative to cytochrome 450 enzymes which, as mentioned, are decimated by
glyphosate.
"The NO works together with sulfur dioxide to control the viscosity of your blood," Seneff explains. "NO
turns into nitrate ... And sulfur dioxide turns into sulfate ...
Nitrate is a chaotrope, and sulfate is a kosmotrope. Kosmotropes are
very interesting molecules that control the viscosity of blood. It's all
about water structuring, stuff that Gerald Pollack talks about.
Kosmotropes make the water structure more like gel and the
chaotropes make it more like fluid, liquid. Those two work against each
other to maintain the correct viscosity of the blood while other things
are going on. If you put a bunch of lipid particles into the blood, it's
going to get more viscous, so you've got to make it less-viscous by
adding NO.
So, there's a back and forth between NO and sulfur dioxide that's
regulated by eNOS. This is a theory that I have, and it makes a lot of
sense. I have continued to gather evidence that supports it.
If glyphosate messes up eNOS, then it messes up the blood's ability
to maintain its proper viscosity, which means your blood could be too
fluid. You could end up with hemorrhaging. It could be too thick, it
can't circulate, so you end up with blood clots."
More Information
One piece of good news is that Mexico is banning glyphosate and will
phase it out entirely by 2024. There are fears Mexico may also start
banning U.S. imports found to be contaminated with glyphosate, which
would actually work in everyone's favor by shining a bright light on the
matter.
While the ultimate answer is to ban the use of glyphosate worldwide, in
the meantime, a key strategy to protect your own health is to buy
certified organic or biodynamic food. Glyphosate is not permitted in
organic agriculture, and even if contamination occurs, the levels are
going to be far lower than that of conventionally-grown foods.
Seneff also recommends eating a high-sulfur diet, as sulfur is crucial
for the health of your metabolism and immune system. "Sulfur deficiency,
I think, is a driver behind some of our health problems," she says.
Also consider taking a glycine supplement to counteract and push out any
glyphosate you might be exposed to. "Glycine is not very expensive and
it is very safe, so it's an easy thing to take as a supplement, which I
think could definitely help," Seneff says.
Other health-promoting habits include eating plenty of fermented foods
and getting optimal amounts of vitamin D and K2. As noted by Seneff,
your vitamin D conversion is also adversely affected by glyphosate.
As is typically the case when talking to Seneff, as she is phenomenally
well-informed, we cover far more details in this interview than I've
summarized here — including environmental effects and countermeasures to
speed the cleanup of soil and water — so I encourage you to listen to
the interview in its entirety.
Of course, to learn more about glyphosate, be sure to pick up a copy of "Toxic Legacy."
It's by far the best book to date on this pernicious toxin that is
robbing people everywhere of their health and quality of life.
Yours in Health and Wellness,
John W Brimhall, DC, FIAMA, DIBAK, Formulator
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